Weather sites

[fedster]

Whats the best sites to use for anticipating cloud cover ?

Ive been useing accu weather.com (after a google search managed to bookmark it for delemer Forrest) but alas cant change the stargazing to any other area

so was wondering what if any specialized sites people use.

[The Sailor]

It's Sat24 for me, the way I have set it up allows me to see what cloud will be heading towards me and at x4 gives a good indication. A click of the mouse turns it to IR for the evening

http://www.sat24.com/en/gb

Jim

[emadmoussa]

http://www.sat24.com/

[emadmoussa]

Oops..sorry Jim, didn't notice your post. I second it then...

[long_arms]

At night I find that all weather forecasts are lucky at best.

I remember back in november I was looking at accuweather on my phone as It began to cloud over. On their website they claimed "Mostly Clear" and "0% chance of rain" for the next hour (how they can EVER claim that is a mystery to me). Anyway, 10 minutes later I was trying to pack everything up as quickly as possible in torrential rain.

Not saying accuweather is the worst, they're all average at best once the sun has set in my opinion.

I agree with Jim, Sat24.com is the way to go! It also has a link to a 5 minute rain image which can be very useful.

I also glance at meteoblue's astronomy seeing forecast. Not sure how accurate it is whatsoever but I like to anyhow . The forecast is not updated regularly enough in my opinion but it seems to be pretty good.

Dan

[emadmoussa]

Anticipating the cloud cover and its degree still a pretty tough area in meteorology. Anything can affect clouds, let be sudden change in air pressure and degree of vapors. Sometimes cloud form up out of thin air right on top of your head. This mostly depends on the level of moisture in the atmosphere and wind. Too many factors contribute to that. We can excuse the Met Office for running millions of data analysis equations with super computers yet the weather variables don't necessarily meet their calculations.

[long_arms]

I understand the difficulties, they cannot hire a million people to sit at sat24 and do a forecast for each area either.

However you can do your own with sat24...you must admit it has said its going to be clear wherever you look and a glance at sat24 has clearly shown that it will not be. This happens regularly for me anyway

Very frustrating, but noone to blame...just the weather.

Dan

[Chris Rowland]

I like the EMETSAT fog image. http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/MSG/RGB/FOG/WESTERNEUROPE/index.htm

It shows an actual satellite picture in false colour, fog and low cloud is a mustard yellow while clear skies are magenta over the land and pale blue over the sea. Higher cloud is red.

It's good at separating low cloud and fog from land, they don't look very different on the normal IR images because the temperature difference is small.

Chris

[fedster]

cheers all will give them a go over this week

[cosmojaydee]

I generally just look out my window , best forcaster in Wigan I am .

[Stargazer_00]

Excellent Site Thanks. If Nothing else it tells you which direction clouds are flowing from so you can visually check yourself what is on the horizon in that direction. Thanks!

[emadmoussa]

Excellent Site Thanks. If Nothing else it tells you which direction clouds are flowing from so you can visually check yourself what is on the horizon in that direction. Thanks!

From my experience, best weather forecast is by sticking your head out of the window and see for yourself. The Met Office and other international weather agencies never stopped failing me...then again, highly complex statistics involved. So basically, stargazing in the UK is based on ''fingers crossed'' attitude

[blueroom]

If you have an iPad there's a cool app called Scope Nights (£1.49 I think), it's not 100% accurate but it does give a fairly good indication of the weather 5 days in advance (see below's example).